Parasailing bill.

Last July, 17-year-old Alexis Fairchild and her friend, Sidney Good, were critically injured in Panama City when strong winds snapped their parasail free from its boat below.

Despite the fact that between 1982 and 2012, 73 people have died and another 1,600 have been injured in parasailing accidents, the industry operates virtually unregulated.

Various bills designed to protect those who go parasailing have been introduced since 2008, yet Florida lawmakers have been reluctant to regulate the industry, fearing it would hurt tourism. But this year we have a chance to change that. Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, has introduced SB 320, also known as the "White-Miskell Act," named alter Amber White and Kathleen Miskell, who were killed in separate parasailing accidents in Pompano Beach in 2012. It would, among other things, require operators to have $1 million per incident in insurance, carry real-time weather equipment on board their vessels, and prevent them from operating when weather conditions deteriorate.

Florida has...